Neverwinter

16May

This game is one in which I have experienced great pleasure in playing. It is based on the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop games and while elements of this are found in the game it is extremely subtle and as such can be enjoyed by anyone. I found it was incredibly easy to get sucked into this rich and detailed world and I recommend this to anyone who likes a great, solid fantasy MMORPG.

One of the things that stood out for me was the soft targeting game mechanics. I like the fact that it helps you target your enemies without being a pure hard lock-on. Instead, it just helps you center your target so you are able to launch standard left-click attacks or use your ‘encounter’ mechanics on them. Encounter mechanics are abilities that you use from your keyboard on the Q, E and R keys (W being used for movement via WASD). They can be offensive or defensive abilities and you can customize which ones you want available at any particular time.

Encounter abilities are not the only abilities you can learn. There are also at-will spamable skills which can be accessed through left and right mouse buttons and also daily abilities used on the 1 and 2 keys. Daily abilities are not actually something you can use once a day. They can be better described as charge abilities as you have to charge up a bar to use them. All these abilities are unlocked as you gain levels by spending points and most have three levels of power to them which you also upgrade.

Feats can also be gained as you gain levels. This is mainly minor buffs to your character as upgrading them will give you a small increase in defense, offense or some kind of utility, depending on what you pick.

Every now and then you will get the chance to upgrade your basic stats by a small amount as well. This stats are the stats that you roll when you create your character. So, for example, you can put an extra point into wisdom or charisma.

Character creation is an enjoyable process in which you pick your species, class, appearance and roll your initial stats. The appearance customization is pretty detailed and allows you to create a fairly unique character without overloading you too much with nitty-gritty details.

Which species you pick actually matters a little in relation to class as certain species are better at certain things, for example, an Elf makes a wonderful cleric. However, there is nothing stopping you making a Half-Orc cleric at all.

The species are Half-Orc, Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Tiefling, Halfling, and Dwarf with another species coming soon.

The classes are Trickster Rogue, Devoted Cleric, Control Wizard, Great Weapon Fighter and Guardian Fighter with another class coming soon.

The game revolves around the usual MMO fare of the ‘go there, kill that’ sort of questing but the way everything is laid out makes it all really fun instead of the typical monotony experienced in other games. You get a sort of ‘OK, let’s DO THIS!’ feeling instead of just thinking ‘Ok.. fine let’s do this.’. This may partly be due to the fact that action is very fast paced and intense with trigger fast reaction speed needed to dodge in and out of the fight and land your hits precisely. Also, everything flows very smoothly from fight to fight with very little boring travel times involved.

All in all this game is definitely one of the best games to have come out recently and definitely one I am going to continue playing in my free time. And that is the best recommendation I can give!